Deep in Cleveland Cavaliers headquarters, team executives are huddled in low light around new GM Chris Grant. Every known deity has been supplicated in preparation for their upcoming meeting with LeBron James. And barely loud enough to hear, a hidden stereo plays Eminem’s Lose Yourself over and over:
If you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment
Would you capture it? Or just let it slip?
They’ve got two days until LeBron’s self-imposed deadline, and by all accounts they’re losing the battle. There’s likely little that can keep LeBron in Cleveland when there’s the possibility of playing with Dwayne Wade or Chris Bosh or some combination of top players somewhere else. If they’re going to come out winners, they need to pull out the stops. Go big, or go home—without LeBron.
It’s time to go get Chris Paul.
He’s available. Reports say he’s clamoring for a trade. He’s a good friend of LeBron’s, he’s one of the best point guards in the business, and he’d do the trick. Cleveland has the sentimental edge in the LeBron sweepstakes, and the prospect of Chris Paul as a sidekick would be too much for the King to pass up.
Essentially, the time for incremental changes is over. The Cavaliers’ brass have spent the last several years—since the team’s NBA Finals run in 2007—adding marginally-better pieces to improve the team. They’ve brought in Mo Williams, Delonte West, Anthony Parker, Shaquille O’Neal, and Antawn Jamison, among others. They didn’t win a title, and none of it matters much now.
The Cavs have always been hurting at the point guard position. Replacing Larry Hughes with Mo Williams after the ’07 campaign was a step up, but Mo has proven to be a major defensive liability and a playoffs no-show. While Chris Paul doesn’t have much on his playoffs resumé, he’s an exceptional defender—statistically he’s a spot-on match for Rajon Rondo, who gets considerably more credit for his defending.
But who are we kidding? The stats don’t matter, and the logic doesn’t matter. If trading for Chris Paul convinces LeBron to stay, they’ve got to do it. Because in that case, trading for Chris Paul means exactly the same thing as trading for LeBron.
And with that in mind, it makes none of the players on the Cavs’ roster untouchable. Is there any situation where you say, “No, I’d rather have J.J. Hickson than LeBron.” Or, “No, we were ready to pull the trigger on keeping LeBron but they wouldn’t do it without Anthony Parker.” You line up your players, let the Hornets take their pick, and run away with Chris Paul before they change their minds.
So who would they actually have to trade? Well, we know it would be significant. The Hornets got cold feet on a fairly attractive package put together last week by the Portland Trail Blazers: Paul in exchange for Andre Miller, Joel Przybilla, Nicolas Batum, Jerryd Bayless, and the 22nd pick in the draft. The assumption is that it will take an even more impressive offer to steal Paul away.
It would certainly include Delonte West, for reasons that won’t be discussed here. It would likely include Mo Williams, since the Hornets would need to get a point guard back. Beyond that, it’s whoever the Hornets want and whoever makes the trade balance correctly. My hunch is that the Cavs would like to keep Anderson Varejao and Antawn Jamison, but neither of them are more important than Chris Paul—especially if Chris Paul also means LeBron James.
It’ll be tricky. It’ll take an eleventh-hour trade. It’ll mean dropping everything, abandoning every other plan, and throwing everything at LeBron.
And if it works, it’ll be entirely worth it.
There’s nothing they can say to LeBron at this point that’s really going to change his mind (“please” isn’t going to do a whole lot). They’ve had a seven-year audition, and at this point it looks suspiciously like they’ve failed. The only persuasive arguments they can still make are with their contract-signing pen.
The Cavs’ executives have to be feeling it. They have to know that inaction is going to mean letting LeBron slip through their fingers, and the Cavaliers returning to complete NBA irrelevance. A last-minute, all-or-nothing LeBron blandishment might not be glamorous, but if you’re the Cavaliers’ GM, you have everything to lose. Everything.
You’ve got to go for it. Or, as Eminem puts it:
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo.
Couldn’t have said it better.
word.